


For You Know Only A Heap Of Broken Images

by Syntax



Category: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time & Explorers of Darkness & Explorers of Sky
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Gen, Morally Ambiguous Character, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2020-04-05 23:51:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 2,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19051018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syntax/pseuds/Syntax
Summary: Even with complete memory loss, there are certain things that are so ingrained into the mind that they simply can't be forgotten.  Your name.  Your personality.  Your desires.  Your fears.The lessons learned in the ruined future are not so easily forgotten in the idyllic past.





	1. The Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> hi
> 
> i wanted to write down my explorers of sky au as a break in between other writing projects. if you're familiar with my grima series, this story will work much the same way; i don't have a set chapter limit like i did for that series, but i want to try to keep the wordcount for each chapter as low as possible.
> 
> i know that doesn't sound very difficult, but the grima series was twice as long as i thought it would be, and my latest project looks like it's going to utterly destroy my "15k words tops" estimate. writing things that are short and to the point IS a challenge for me.

When she wakes, it is to the sound of rushing water, the feel of wet sand, and the smell of salt and dying plant life.

For reasons she can't understand, it feels novel to smell something dying rather than something already dead.

There's a sound muffled under the crashing waves.  She hears something getting closer—a voice?

"What happened?!  Are you okay?"

_What happened...?_

She opens her eyes.

There is a shinx staring back down at her, blue fur almost blending in with the blue sky overhead.

_Since when was the sky blue?_

...

Since when was the sky blue?

Since when _wasn't_ the sky blue?

"You're awake!" the shinx says.  "Thank goodness!  Here, let me help you up!"

A paw is extended to help her back to her feet.  The hand that reaches out to grab it is not the hand she remembers having.

As she rises to feet she doesn't remember having either, it's the realization that she doesn't remember anything else that keeps her from hearing what the little (or not so little) shinx was saying right until that blue face pops right up into hers and breaks her train of thought.

"Are you okay?" the shinx asks, seemingly genuinely concerned.

"No." she says curtly in response.  "Who are you?"

The shinx seems taken aback.

"Uhh... I'm Shinx.  But, everyone calls me Blue.  I'm guessing you're Kirlia?"

_Ah.  Is that what she is now?_

She stares at the shinx.  Goes over what she knows (not much) and what her instincts tell her (nothing that makes sense).  There's risk in telling the shinx who she is, she knows that for a fact—but she doesn't know why.  The thought comes to her that she doesn't necessarily have to tell the shinx _what_ she is.

If she looks to be a kirlia, who would believe her to be human?

She makes a decision.

"No," she says again.  "Karenza."


	2. The First Defeat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was not expecting to post chapter two so quickly, but i didn't feel like writing my other project again today so here we are.

"That... Didn't go so well.." the shinx muttered.

She had to agree.

The bullies that had taken the treasure Blue kept around his neck—he hadn't explained what it was yet, but clearly it must be important to him if they were going to fight to get it back—had soundly beaten them when they reached the end of the beach cave pit.

Karenza burned with resentment at the loss.  Something proud and venomous inside her told her that she'd taken on greater foes before and come out victorious.

_If only she remembered how._

"But hey," Blue said, snapping her out of her thoughts.  The small pokemon was looking at her with confused eyes.  "Aren't kirlia psychic type?  I mean, I'd heard they were, but you were just punching everything back there, so I thought..."

He looks away when he trails off.  And now she's at another loss.

Strangers can only be trusted as long as you're prepared for when they turn on you.  Karenza knows this for a fact.

She has only just met this shinx.  She knows as much about him as she does about herself.

_How to explain I don't know how to do anything else...?_

She hears an alarmed noise from Blue and curses inwardly at the realization she'd spoken aloud.

"You don't know?  But everyone knows how to use their moves!  You'd have to like—forget practically everything to forget how to use any of your moves!  It's a part of who you are!  It's..."  The shinx trails off again, wide eyed.

"Do you have amnesia?" he asks.

She looks away in a huff.  She can hear the movement of his paws on the sand as Blue comes closer, but she just sifts away.

"Karenza?" he says, and damn it all that voice sounds so genuinely concerned.

"I might," she admits.

For a moment, there's only the sound of the waves on the beach in the distance.  She can't hear anything from Blue.  He probably wasn't expecting his theory to be correct.

"Thank you," she hears finally, and it's unexpected enough that she actually turns back to look the flash pokemon in the eye again.  There's a smile on his face.

_Why...?_

"Thank you?"

"You've got your own problems, and they seem a lot bigger than mine," Blue explains.  "But you still agreed to help me get my relic fragment back when I asked.  So thank you, Karenza."

She doesn't know what to say to that.  She just keeps looking at him until she can't anymore and goes back to looking at her two-fingered hands.

Strangers can only be trusted as long as you're prepared for when they turn on you—but even so, you can't deny them help when they need it, because you've known what it's like to need help too.

"...Come on," she says eventually, rising on unfamiliar legs and heading back into the beach cave.  "As long as we're here, those thieves can't escape without a fight.  Let's head back down and get your relic."

"Got it!  They can't beat us this time!  Come on, Karenza!"

Blue bolted ahead of her, tossing up sand as he scrambled towards the cave's inner depths.  She stood there blinking owlishly.

It was strange, but.  Something in her found the little shinx's enthusiasm familiar.

_Perhaps she'd met a similar stranger before?_

_..._

No.  If she had, that had very little bearing on the situation at hand.  Shaking her head, Karenza headed into the cave after her partner. 


	3. The Guild

The hay bed was scratchy underneath her skin as Karenza stared at the earthen ceiling.

So this was.  An interesting day.  And really, waking up as a pokemon with no memories was only the tip of the iceberg.

Somehow in the span of a few hours, she'd gone from helping a stranger retrieve an item of personal value, to bedding in the same room as that stranger, in a building full of strangers, one of which was incredibly powerful, where the only exit point was sealed shut with wooden bars when not in use.

She genuinely had no idea how that happened.

"Hey, Karenza?"

"Hm?"

She looked over to the other bed in the room.  Blue's yellow eyes glowed faintly back at her in the dark.

"Oh good, you're still awake." he said cheerfully.  "Listen... I don't know about you, but my heart's been racing all day."

"Between meeting you, and standing up for myself, and joining the guild... Today's been an adventure."

She snorted.  That was certainly one way of putting it.

Though come to think of it... Surely she'd had adventures before that started out as tame as this one?

The little lion pokemon gave a not-so-little yawn, stretching out all his paws and flopping over on his side.

"Good night, Karenza.  I can't wait to see what adventures tomorrow will bring."

"Good night," she murmured in response.  She closed her eyes and tried to get comfortable.

...

"Hey, Karenza?"

_So much for that._

"Hm?"

"What time do you think they'll want us to wake up tomorrow?"

She had no idea, to be honest.

"Sometime near dawn, I imagine.  If we're providing a service, it's natural that we be up and ready before our clients arrive at the guild."

" _Sometime near dawn?!_  We gotta get to sleep!  Good night, Karenza, I'll try not to snore too loud!"

A wry smile found its way to her face as the psychic pokemon tried not to laugh.

_Good night, Blue._

 


	4. The Name

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the wordcount is 1776 and karenza reveals a knowledge of the nato alphabet
> 
> that was completely unintentional and also very amusing

When Loudred came for them, Karenza was already awake.  Or more specifically, she had never gone to sleep.  Not really.  For some reason she just kept waking up about every other hour and then had to fight to try and get back to sleep.

She felt surprisingly well rested though, all things considered.

Loudred had seemed almost impressed before he proceeded to yell at Blue to be more like his partner and wake up on time.  They'd easily made it to the lobby in time for their new fellow apprentices to teach them the morning cheer.

Seeing the Guildmaster sleeptalk his morning address had been... Something.

Karenza still wasn't sure how she'd agreed to any of this.

"So what should we do now?" She heard Blue say.  "Do we check the job boards, or go see the Guildmaster, or—"

"Ahem."

They both looked over to see Chatot, sitting on the ground looking back up at them, already with a cross expression on his face despite how early in the day it was.

"Is something wrong, Chatot?" Blue asked.

The music note pokemon pointedly ruffled his feathers before speaking.

"I trust you've chosen your team name by now?" he said.

Oh.

Oh, that's right.  By the time they'd actually gotten the fragment back and arrived at the guild, it had been too late to register them as a specific team.  Wigglytuff had told them to just come up with the team name in the morning so he could finish the paperwork.

They had not, in fact, come up with a team name by now.

"Oh _shoot_ ," she heard Blue mutter.

"We've come up with several prospects," Karenza lied, taking a step between Blue and Chatot in the event something happened, "but we haven't decided on one yet.  I'm sure we'll have that straightened out by the time you manage to rouse the Guildmaster."

Chatot leveled a suspicious glare at the both of them before nodding, hopping away to the other side of the lobby and eventually disappearing behind the door to the guildmaster's office.

The door shut with the softest of thuds.

"Okay," she said. "Team names, now.  Alpha.  Bravo.  Charlie.  Delta.  Echo."

"What?"

"Do you have suggestions for team name?  Chatot will be arriving with Wigglytuff any moment."

"Oh! Uh...."

"Kilo."

"Poképals?"

"Sierra."

"Go-Getters?"

"Yankee."

"How do you know all these weird words?"

"...I have no idea."

"What about Mystery?" Blue suggested.

"Mystery?" Karenza repeated, incredulous.  "I thought we were exploring, not solving crimes."

"No, no, no!  We—I mean _we might_ , but—we've both got our own mysteries to solve, don't we?"

Karenza blinked.  Did they?  _There was the mystery of her transformation, but she hadn't mentioned any of that to Blue, so..._

"'Cause I'm looking to solve the mystery of my relic fragment," Blue continued, gesturing to the stone around his neck with a paw, "and you've got the mystery of your lost memories!"

Ah.  She winced at that, looking back to check if anyone heard the shinx's casual declaration.  Loudred and Diglett where yelling back and forth by the sentry hole.  Croagunk was fiddling with his cauldron.

Neither group seemed to hear them.

"...Tell you what.  We'll go with Team Mystery if you never shout that out where people can hear again."

"Oh, shoot, sorry Karenza!"


	5. The Attack

 

_Blue couldn't see it._

Their first job.

_Their first job._

Blue ran ahead.  Silly boy.  Stupid boy.  Don't run ahead.  Don't.

But he'd managed to do fine.  They both had.  This was another sea cave, all the pokemon here were water types.  ~~All but one.~~

Blue was an electric type.  He was a growing boy, he could handle himself.

_The chingling—_

She threw the anorith that was trying to attack her off to the side and ran to the other end of the cave.

"Blue—!"

"One second!"

She could feel something rise up from deep inside her.

She could feel the blood turn to ice underneath her skin.

_Right behind him, the chingling—_

Blue rushed into an advancing lileep, a quick attack, didn't look back.  The sea lily pokemon crumpled under the force of the impact.

The chingling advanced.  She ran harder.

The thing inside of her battered at the surface.

"Blue!"

_Wrapped up in its cord, Blue, look, Blue—_

She let go.

Something discordant burst out of her like a wave, slamming right into the psychic pokemon floating above her partner, sending it on a collision course with the rock walls of the cave.

The chingling collapsed on impact.  The stalactite it was holding clattered harmlessly against the cave floor.

Blue looked back at her.  He looked confused.  Karenza wondered what she must look like.  Haggard?  Haunted?  Violent?

A sudden smile lit up his face like the sun.

"You did it!"

The shinx ran up to her with a spring in his step and pulled her into a hug.  She felt like gagging.

No idea.  He had no idea.

"You did it, Karenza, you finally used a move!  I'm so proud of you!"

Blue hugged her tighter.  She could still feel the chill running through her veins.

_But she did it, didn't she?  He was alive, wasn't he?_

She forced her arms to move.  Lift up.  Curl inwards.  Return the hug.  She forced herself to relax.

"...Yeah," Karenza said, trying to unclench her jaw.  "Yeah, I did it."

~~_Now how many times could she do it before she was too late?_ ~~


	6. The Feeling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remember when i said i wanted to work on this in-between projects? i'm working on about four or five different stories at once right now, trying to reach 50k words by halloween.
> 
> this story will probably be seeing some more updates when i need to bump up my wordcount but can't think of anything for the bigger tories.

Karenza tugged absentmindedly at the lime green ribbon wrapped around her neck as she started along the pathways back to Treasure Town.

Necks were a deeply perilous place to be wrapping much of anything, even something as flimsy and delicate as the ribbon Wigglytuff had given her. But...

She felt cute with it on. So she kept it on, despite the risk.

"Geez, I never realized exploring needed so much stuff!" Blue griped suddenly. "I think most of the payment for these jobs is just going to go towards replacing everything we used up!"

"Would you rather be dead than prepared?" She said before she can stop herself.

The shinx paused at the entrance of the dungeon they just left, then underwent a full-body shudder.

"No thank you. I'd rather be prepared than dead any day of the week."

They've been getting better at exploring the dungeons surrounding Treasure Town. Right now they've reached a point where they can run three or four simple jobs in the same dungeon at once. There have been some close calls so far, but.

Nothing like what had happened on their first job.

"Aren't you tired carrying the treasure bag though?" Blue asked.

She shook her head in response.

"It's not that heavy to me. Honestly, it barely feels like it has any weight at all."

Not to mention...

As the days went on, Karenza couldn't shake the feeling that something else was missing in addition to her memories. She didn't know what it was.

Something small, probably, but heavy. The ghost of a weight at her hip that carrying the treasure bag was helping with, but not quite replacing entirely.

"Come on. I'm sure Chimecho will have dinner waiting for us when we get back."

"Oh, I hope so! I don't know about you, but I could eat a whole mountain!"

"Could you now? I'd be interested in seeing that."

Maybe she'd find out what it was on her way to getting her memories back.


	7. The Two Brothers, part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just remembered; i drew art of karenza and blue a few months ago and never linked it here.
> 
> voila: https://66.media.tumblr.com/31cbada4c1fcb4c83f552a30da572e93/tumblr_ptf7qgFamD1rge8m1o1_540.png

"Hi Misters Kecleon and Kecleon!"

Karenza winced at Blue's loud greeting, though the kecleon shopkeepers seemed to pay his exuberance no mind.

"Well hello, Blue!" one said.

"Good morning, Blue!" the other said at the same time. "How can we help you?"

She hung back somewhat as the small shinx chatted away with the shopkeepers, more than happy to let him do all the talking. Kecleon and Kecleon were pleasant enough conversationalists, but she wasn't, so she really never had much idea to say to the brothers aside from telling them what supplies she needed and asking when certain items would be back in stock later. So she just left the pleasantries up to Blue.

Standing on the sidelines while her partner talked amicably with the shopkeepers didn't bother her, anyways; something in the back of her mind told her she had a different strength than making friends. Something else told her that she would probably be better off never having to use that strength again.

She had no reason to doubt the strange convictions left behind after losing her memory. Karenza was fine with not knowing.

"Misters Kecleon!"

She craned her head over in the direction of the sound (and noted with some satisfaction that Blue did as well since that meant he was paying more attention to his surroundings).

Two new pokemon running up to the market stall. Marill and Azurill, by the looks of it. The Kecleon brothers greeted their new customers with the usual smile.

"Ah! Little Marill and Azurill! Welcome, my young friends."

"Hello," Azurill's tiny voice chimed in response. "May I buy an apple?"

Karenza tuned out the rest of the transaction, though she did listen to Kecleon's explanation of the two children's home life. The notion of children caring for their sick parents being admirable struck her as somewhat odd.

_Were children looking after themselves less common in this world..?_

The children coming running back to return the extra apple struck her as equally odd ( _why not just accept the windfall?_ ), but there was nothing odd to what followed after.

Azurill tripped over his own tiny feet, sending the apple he'd wrapped up in his tail flying in her direction. Karenza caught it effortlessly before it hit the ground.

If the apple was a gift, after all, it wouldn't do to just let it get covered in bruises.

Azurill righted himself with a minimum of wobbles, then walked back over to where she was standing.

"W-we're sorry to bother you, Miss," the polka dot pokemon said, bobbing his tiny body in an effective curtsy and extending his tail to take the apple, "Thank you so much."

"...It was no trouble at all," Karenza said. She handed the apple back with no fuss or fanfare.

 

 

And heard nothing at all.


End file.
